Author: Austin Brister

Austin represents oil and gas exploration and production companies and landowners in a wide variety of complex commercial litigation matters, including contract and property disputes, royalty disputes, breach of lease cases, lease termination/perpetuation disputes, and an array of other issues in the upstream oil and gas sector. Austin has prosecuted and defended claims in state courts and federal courts. Austin strives to find practical business solutions to complex issues, but if necessary, he works hard to implement effective strategies in the courthouse.

Texas Outfitters, Ltd., LLC v. Nicholson, 572 S.W.3d 647 (Tex. 2019)

The Texas Supreme Court recently issued its opinion in Texas Outfitters v. Nicholson, addressing the duties an executive mineral owner owes to non-executive owners. The case focused on when an executive owner has a duty to sign a lease and to what extent efforts to protect or benefit the surface estate can impact this duty. The Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment holding that the executive breached its duty and affirmed the trial court’s award of $867,654.32 plus interest and costs.

In the last edition of Producer’s Edge, we surveyed several recent offset cases. Those cases illustrate that horizontal shale plays have brought several unique twists and complications, which can significantly alter the traditional notion of an “offset well.” In addition, Texas courts focus on a careful reading of the actual language within an offset provision when determining both when and how to drill an offset well.

A recent case out of the San Antonio Court of Appeals, Bell v. Chesapeake Energy Corp, continues this trend of offset lawsuits. The Bell case addresses whether two different offset provisions required the lessors to prove the reasonable prudent operator standard, and how to calculate compensatory royalties for an adjacent horizontal well.

In this
edition, we present several insightful articles, including an article covering
the recent Barrow-Shaver opinion from the Texas Supreme Court involving the
role of expert witness testimony in contract construction cases. You’ll also
find an article surveying surface use disputes, an article discussing a recent
drainage/offset case, and an article discussing acreage assignment issues at
the Texas Railroad Commission. In addition, we have included a guest article
from the International Trade and Transactions Practice Group, analyzing key
legal factors when engaging in international oil and gas transactions. Finally,
you’ll find a short summary of several recent Texas oil and gas cases, and a
list of oil and gas cases pending before the Texas Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs in title disputes sometimes will allege a claim under the Declaratory Judgment Act in order to seek attorneys’ fees. In this case, the court held that the claim could only be asserted as a trespass to try title claim, where attorneys’ fees are not recoverable.

Here, an oil and gas company hired landmen to acquire oil and gas leases in Jefferson County. Landmen acquired 22 leases and assigned them to the oil and gas company using a form that included an overriding royalty reservation and a provision indicating the assignment would terminate upon any late royalty payments. The landmen allegedly recorded the assignment without giving the oil and company an opportunity to review or approve the form. Years later, the landmen claimed royalty payments were untimely and sought termination of the assignment. The landmen claimed that, even though the oil and gas company had not reviewed or accepted the assignment, it ratified the assignment by its conduct.

The San Antonio Court of Appeals recently analyzed the Texas Correction-Instrument Statutes in Yates v. Broadway. The court held that, if a grantor or grantee have conveyed their interests to heirs, successors, or assigns, then those heirs, successors, or assigns must sign a correction instrument in order for it to effectively correct the original instrument. For many practitioners, this was the expected outcome; however, the case provides an interesting example of complexities that can be involved when attempting to correct an instrument years after it is executed.

The Eastland Court of Appeals recently issued its opinion in Endeavor v. Energen adopting a limited interpretation of an “accumulation” clause within a continuous development provision. The Court held that the clause only allowed the lessee to extend the “next” 150-day term, not to be accumulated and used on any well.

Retained acreage provisions continue to be a popular subject in Texas oil and gas law. The Texas Supreme Court recently denied a petition for review in the closely-watched case, Apache v. Double Eagle. In that case, the parties disagreed as to whether a retained acreage clause provided for a single partial termination at the end of the primary term (i.e., a “snapshot-in-time” termination), or a continuous partial release throughout the secondary term (i.e., “rolling termination”). This case bolsters the old adage: “say what you mean and mean what you say.” Texas courts will not fill in the blank otherwise.

In urban oil and gas plays such as the Barnett Shale, horizontal drilling has “paved the way” for oil and gas operators to drill through and produce minerals underlying highways, streets, and roadways. Even in rural areas across Texas, numerous horizontal wells have been drilled underneath roads and highways. As a result, several reported cases in recent years have involved title to minerals underlying roadways. Landmen of the vertical era may have paid little attention to mineral title underlying roadway tracts. After all, one option may have been simply to drill the vertical well next to the road or to omit the roadway tract from the unit. However, horizontal drilling significantly altered this analysis, as geological implications and long horizontal laterals may dictate that the horizontal wellbore pass under the roadway, significantly increasing the odds that a roadway tract will be a “drillsite tract.” The result is that mineral title and pooling issues are more likely of critical concern.

Parties to a joint operating agreement sometimes elect to have a non-owner serve as the operator. For example, interest owners may determine that they are unwilling or unable to perform the operator duties under the operating agreement, and will instead elect hire an unaffiliated contract operator. However, placing a non-owner in the position of operator is problematic for a number of reasons. For example, most model form operating agreements either directly or indirectly indicate that ownership is a condition precedent to serving as operator. Moreover, numerous obligations, protections, and other provisions of model form operating agreements may become confusing, unworkable, or even meaningless when applied to a non-owning operator.

Some of those issues are illustrated by the recent case OBO, Inc. v. Apache, involving the American Petroleum Institute’s Model Form Unit Agreement and Model Form Unit Operating Agreement. In that case, the Houston 14th District Court of Appeals was faced with determining whether an elected Unit Operator is permitted to delegate operatorship duties to a contract operator, and whether that contract operator can be liable to nonoperators for breach of any duties imposed on the operator under that Unit Operating Agreement.

Three recent Texas cases have focused on the interpretation of express offset provisions in oil and gas leases. Over the last year, the Texas oil and gas industry has experienced what some commentators have called “Shale Boom 2.0,” with increased drilling activity in South Texas and the Permian Basin, leading to some marketing bottlenecks and spikes in the number of drilled but uncompleted wells.

Whatever the
cause, at least three reported appellate cases in the last 18 months have
focused on the construction of express offset clauses in oil and gas
leases. Oil and gas landmen and lawyers
alike should take note of these decisions, as they each underscore that Texas
courts do not interpret oil and gas leases merely by reference to the
industry’s general rules, but instead on a careful analysis of the actual
language used by the parties in the lease.
And as one recent case illustrates, the “surrounding circumstances” of
the shale boom might lead to results some would not expect.